Opera and Musical Theatre in Europe (1600-1750): The Birth of Multimedia Entertainment

Module overview

This module introduces you to operatic and musical-theatrical entertainments produced in Italy, France, Spain and England between 1600 and 1750 and investigates the ways in which their multimedia nature functioned in these diverse milieu.

Aims and Objectives

Learning Outcomes

Transferable and Generic Skills

Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:

Critically engage with readings and lecture material to formulate your own arguments, and express these in written form.

Knowledge and Understanding

Having successfully completed this module, you will be able to demonstrate knowledge and understanding of:

The ways in which opera was produced, the economic and social underpinnings behind its production, and its political function.
The main musical, textual, dramatic, and visual components of early modern European opera and musical theatre and the ways in which their socio-political contexts contributed to shaping them.
The trajectory that brought opera and musical theatre from the court to commercial theatres and the main characteristics of the systems of patronage and of the open market.

Subject Specific Intellectual and Research Skills

Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:

Critically assess and debate issues of genre, as they apply to the Baroque period.
Engage in debates about performance practice and the staging of Baroque opera.

Learning and Teaching

Teaching and learning methods

Teaching methods include - Lectures - Class discussion - Sharing of ideas and materials via Blackboard and other electronic resources Learning activities include - A wide range of reading - Study of selected librettos and musical scores - Study of selected video recordings - Individual research - Use of online resources to find newspaper articles and other material relating to the subjects being studied.

Study time
Type	Hours
Independent Study	126
Teaching	24
Total study time	150

Resources & Reading list

Textbooks

Anthony, James R. (1973). French Baroque Music from Beaujoyeulx to Rameau. London: Batsford.

LaRue, C. Steven (1995). Handel and His Singers: The Creation of the Royal Academy Operas, 1720–1728. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Carter, Tim and John Butt (2005). The Cambridge History of Seventeenth-Century Music. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Burrows, Donald (1994). Handel. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Harris, Ellen T. ed. (1989). The Librettos of Handel’s Operas: A Collection of Seventy-One Librettos Documenting Handel’s Operatic Career. 13 vols. New York: Garland Press.

Rosand, Ellen (1991). Opera in Seventeenth-Century Venice: The Creation of a Genre. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Stein, Louise (1993). Songs of Mortals, Dialogues of the Gods: Music and Theatre in Seventeenth-Century Spain. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Assessment

Summative

This is how we’ll formally assess what you have learned in this module.

Breakdown
Method	Percentage contribution
Essay	70%
Outline	30%

Referral

This is how we’ll assess you if you don’t meet the criteria to pass this module.

Breakdown
Method	Percentage contribution
Essay	100%

Repeat

An internal repeat is where you take all of your modules again, including any you passed. An external repeat is where you only re-take the modules you failed.

Breakdown
Method	Percentage contribution
Essay	100%

Repeat Information

Repeat type: Internal & External